The Journey, The Path, The Savior
by Little Gem Magnolia
Summary: Faith is a tricky little thing. It relies heavily on simply believing and we always seem to lose it when we need it the most. Luckily there is always a light at the end of the tunnel to guide the lost but it is only visible to those who are ready. He is now ready.


_The Journey, The Path, The Savior_

Disclaimer: I do not own Rambo, any of the characters and of course I don't own the prayer of Saint Francis. (It should all be pretty self-explanatory by now, really.)

Summary: Faith is a tricky little thing. It relies heavily on simply _believing_ and we always seem to lose it when we need it the most. Luckily there is always a light at the end of the tunnel to guide the lost but it is only visible to those who are _ready_. He is now ready.

Author's Note: I've loved Rambo for years, ever since I was little, but I've never thought of writing anything for it. It's one of those cases where it's so good you _don't_ want to write a fanfic but I was watching the fourth movie recently and it got me to thinking. Sarah and the missionaries really play a big part in relation to John and his lost faith. I simply love watching his spiritual journey play out on his face throughout the movie and Sarah is very insistent on wanting to bring him back into the fold of humanity so I find it hard to believe that her care, consideration and concern stopped when the credits rolled. That's pretty much how this was born and I really hope everyone enjoys reading it.

 **0000**

 _Lord, make me your instrument of peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may not seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in dying that we awake to eternal life._

 **0000**

She didn't know him, not really so it was purely on impulse that she had started writing him. The situation was strange, hard to explain and altogether awkward but exchanging a wave across yards of bloodied ground was an insufficient goodbye in her book, especially after all that had transpired. He had saved her life and the lives of her friends at the risk of his own and that kind of selflessness was hard to find. She couldn't let it go unappreciated.

She had so much to say, so much to _thank_ him for.

It was with this in mind that she had trekked back to the snake village in search of him. The men in the village had been completely clueless as to his whereabouts and the men who'd helped him work his boat hadn't been much better. They'd told her he'd simply packed up and left in the middle of the night without a word, leaving his boat with them.

The news had practically devastated her and a hollow feeling had settled in the pit of her stomach but she'd smiled anyway as she'd absently inquired after his surname. Disappearing in the dead of night sounded like him, or what she knew of him anyway. The villagers were infinitely more helpful concerning this information and she'd left Thailand a second time with a quiet determination to find the Vietnam War veteran from Arizona named John Rambo.

He'd been right when he'd told her that Bowie was a small place and she assumed she'd been lucky that there had only been one Rambo to be found. It had been with a strange sort of optimism that she'd desperately taken a chance that Richard Rambo was the father he'd told her about on the long ride to Burma. It had been a shot in the dark and she'd been completely aware of the fact that she could have been spilling her guts to the wrong household, that whoever found the letter could think she was crazy but she'd had to try.

The first letter was supposed to have been the last. She'd set out merely to thank him for everything he'd done. She'd wanted to let him know that his bravery hadn't been forgotten, would _never_ be forgotten by her and that, while she still clung to her religion with an iron fist, knowing him had taught her a lot. That the things he'd said had resonated with her; that she still heard his words and learned from them daily.

She'd felt lighter as she'd signed her name and sealed the envelope, like a weight had been lifted and she'd only hoped that her words made him feel the same way. She hadn't received a reply but, then again, she hadn't really expected to. Even if the letter had by some chance reached him, he was a quiet, reserved man. She may as well have been writing to a ghost.

The second letter could only have been described as written diarrhea. She'd woken in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and panting as though she'd run a marathon. It had been a bad dream, or maybe a flashback and her thoughts had most literally been all over the place. It hadn't been the first time, and she'd been sure it wouldn't be the last.

Her therapist had referred to it as a form of PTSD while Michael had called it a crisis of faith. Putting a name to it didn't really matter, though, it had shaken her to her very core and she'd known of only one person in the entire world who would understand so she'd picked up her pen and had started to write. In the end it had been a jumbled, confusing mess of nonsense that, once again, she could have been sending to the wrong house - and then they really _would_ think she was crazy - but she'd signed her name and sent it anyway.

This time an answer had found its way into her mailbox, and in rather short order. She'd smiled at his unique brand of comfort, deeply touched at his willingness to share just a small portion of his own experience with post trauma stress and, as a result, had grinned the whole day. That one shared experience had opened a doorway and proved to be the beginning of a correspondence that was tenuous, irregular and often heavily one-sided but _comfortable_ and from then on he always wrote her back.

Time passed and before she'd known it, a year had gone by with him as her secret confidant. They'd talked of nothing overly important during the course of their friendship but one day that all changed.

He slowly began to open up to her about Vietnam, the aftermath and his long acquaintance with a man he viewed as a father. She could read through the lines in his story and surmise on her own just how and why he'd lost his faith in not only God but humanity as well. She could have probably even pinpointed the exact event that had pushed him into the state she and the others had found him in.

His growing ease and familiarity warmed her heart and she instinctively knew what this new level in their relationship meant. She wasn't sure how but something told her that he was finally _ready_. To her it was a sign: he was ready to rediscover his faith and she was determined to help him, no matter what. It didn't matter that she could only be with him through pen and paper, she would help and she would never give up on him. After all, he hadn't given up on her and it was only appropriate that she would be the one to help him; she owed him.

Even the strongest and most devout go through a time when they have doubts, insecurities. Doubts are a normal part of life, they're even expected but it is imperative that even through the dark and downright unpleasant parts of faith, each individual finds _something_ to believe in.

Burma had been full of doubts. In fact it had been one huge doubt and, at her lowest, there had been only one thing that she'd had faith in: _him_.

 _He_ would come for them.

 _He_ would come for her.

 _He_ would never leave her behind.

He had been a dark guardian angel in an unbelievably dark world and he had saved her, in every sense of the word. As strange as it sounded, this man that she barely knew had saved _her_ faith and now it was her turn to save his.

 **0000**

 _Reviews are lovely._


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